Only Human
by claudiastar
Summary: on his fifteenth birthday Teddy Lupin learns some things about his father he'd rather not have known.Oneshot, please review.


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, much as the little voices in my head would like me to think differently

Author's Note: According to the all knowing Lexicon Teddy's birthday is sometime in April. For the purposes of this story I have made it during the Easter holidays. Writing this I fell in love with Teddy and Vic Weasley (apologies for taking liberties with her name, but honestly- Victoire? No self respecting Weasley would let that stand). I'm thinking of writing a series of things about them- if anyone would be interested in reading that let me know.

Only Human

It was a warm evening, warmer than usual for April. For once summer seemed to have decided to start early. Light was pouring through the windows of Andromeda Tonks' large sparklingly clean kitchen, glinting of the polished granite sideboard and the wood of the large oak kitchen table. Unusually for a house only inhabited by two people the room was full to bursting point. Harry and Ginny Potter were there with their three children and Ron and Hermione had brought Rose and Hugo. Bill and Fleur were due to arrive with their family later and Molly and Arthur had said they would drop in tomorrow. Andromeda had been slaving over the stove for most of the day to produce a truly magnificent feast. The reason for this activity was the tall, thin dark haired boy who was sitting curled up in the window seat with a plate of ham and salad. It was Teddy Lupin's fifteenth birthday and his grandmother had been determined to celebrate it in style. The huge cake with "Happy Birthday Teddy" written on it in red icing above an iced Gryffindor lion which stood in pride of place on the table looked wonderful. Teddy himself felt extremely content looking out of the window at the long shadows cast by the elm trees in the garden.

Harry left the table where Ginny was attempting to prevent Albus throwing a large mound of chocolate brownie at his brother James and walked across to his godson who greeted him with a warm smile.

"Happy Birthday Teddy" Harry said and gave his godson a tight hug.

"Thanks," he replied with a grin.

"So how does it feel to be fifteen?" Harry asked cheerfully.

"Not much different from fourteen to be honest," Teddy said ruefully.

Harry laughed. "I cannot believe how quickly the time's gone, it seems like just five minutes ago your Dad came bursting in at Shell Cottage to tell us all you'd been born. He looked happier than I've ever seen him."

Teddy felt himself turn a little pink, feeling suddenly awkward. That was the major disadvantage of birthdays. Everyone seemed to insist on telling him about his parents- how much they had loved him, how happy they would have been to see him as he was now. It wasn't that he didn't like hearing about them, he really did, but he was never sure exactly how he was supposed to respond. He hadn't known them after all.

"You do realise you sound like someone's maiden Aunt don't you." Teddy said with a laugh. But Harry's face remained thoughtful, though he was smiling.

"Your parents would be-"

"-really proud of me, I know." Teddy finished quickly, staring at his shoes. Wanting to avoid further conversation on the subject he got up and moved away quickly to where his grandmother was chatting with Hermione about her work at the Ministry.

"Ever since I moved to the Law enforcement department I've been completely snowed under" Hermione was saying. Seeing Teddy approach his grandmother gave him a broad smile.

"There you are Teddy. I've hardly seen you all day. What do you think of the cake?"

Teddy felt his insides squirm guiltily. He had spent most of the day hiding in his room in an effort to avoid the mad preparations for the party.

"It looks amazing Grandma, thanks." He gave her a grateful smile.

She ruffled his flyaway brown hair affectionately. He wriggled out from under her hand "Oh get off," he said in mock irritation. Actually he never really minded his grandmother's gestures of affection. Though of course he'd have died rather than admit that.

"Stay still and let me look at you." she said "You really are getting ridiculously tall. I don't know where it comes from." Then she turned to her companion."What do you think Hermione?" Andromeda said laughing "Hasn't my boy grown up handsome?"

Teddy turned bright pink "don't Grandma" he muttered, deeply embarrassed.

Hermione however nodded, "Yes, very handsome." She was giving him an odd look, as if she was looking not just at him but through to something else. It made Teddy feel deeply uncomfortable. "How your father could ever have even considered leaving you I will never understand."

The moment the words were out of her mouth Hermione realised she had said something very very wrong. She gave a gasp and her hand flew to her mouth. A stricken expression came into her brown eyes.

"Oh no, oh I didn't mean… oh Teddy!" she squeaked.

"What are you talking about?" said Teddy still smiling, because the only possible explanation for Hermione's words was that she had made some sort of mistake. He even gave a small laugh. Then he saw the expression on his grandmother's face. She was glaring at Hermione with such a look of rage and hatred on her face, black eyes blazing and jaw set, that he knew something was really bad.

"Grandma" he said, more frightened this time "What is she talking about?"

"I…nothing. It's nothing Teddy," she said stiffly.

But he knew that wasn't true. The room seemed to have gone deadly quiet. Ginny had frozen in the act of wiping Lily's face and even Rose and Hugo had stopped giggling.

"Don't Lie!" Teddy hadn't meant to shout but he found himself yelling. He turned to Hermione "what did you mean, when did my Dad leave me?" he said in a very quiet, slightly shaky voice.

Ginny cut in before Hermione could answer. Hermione threw her a look of grateful relief "It happened ages ago Teddy" Ginny said in a very gentle voice that he found only infuriated him more "Before you were even born."

"But not before I was involved!" he protested angrily. Then turned to his godfather "Harry will you tell me what the hell is going on. Why would my Dad leave me?"

Harry frowned and sighed, pushing a hand through his black hair. There was a look of deep concern on his face.

"Teddy," he said worriedly "It was such a long time ago. No one wants to upset you."

"So I don't deserve to know about my own father?!" Teddy shouted, rather louder than he had intended.

"No! I didn't mean that" Harry put in quickly "But does it really matter?"

"It matters to me." Teddy said stubbornly

"Well," Harry began hesitantly "When your Mum was pregnant your Dad, err your Dad got it into his head that he'd made a mistake marrying her. Because of, um, what he was you know. He thought he'd turned her into an outcast. So he thought you'd both be better off without him. He left your mum for about a month during her pregnancy."

There was a very long silence. Teddy stared at Harry, a mixture of rage and horror mounting up inside him. Finally he said, struggling to keep his voice under control. "He just ran off and left her, when she was pregnant, in the middle of a war?" He voice seemed to rise steadily in volume throughout the sentence.

Harry gave him a pained look. "Yes. We argued about it. It was the only time we've ever argued about anything actually," he said awkwardly.

Teddy found himself staring at everyone in the room as if he had never seen them before. "You've all been lying to me. All of you, my entire life every time you told me what a great person my Dad was and how much he loved me!"

"That's not true Teddy. He did love you, very very much, and your Mum too. I know that." Harry protested

"Then why did he leave us!"

"Because he was scared!" Ginny put in furiously "You don't understand what it was like then!"

"Because I'm too young ? I'm not too young to know right from wrong!"

Harry was forcibly reminded of a conversation he had had about his own father. When Sirius had tried to brush off James' bullying of Snape as youthful idiocy hadn't he replied _I'm fifteen?_ He was recalled to the present by the sound of tears. Lily had started crying.

"Teddy" Andromeda said in a miserable voice "no one has lied to you. Everything we've told you about your parents is true."

She reached out and put an arm on his shoulder, but he pushed her away "Just leave me alone," He said fiercely and turned and ran out of the Kitchen up to his own bedroom, followed by Lily's wails.

888

He had been alone in his room for about half an hour when there was a gentle knock on the door. "Go away!" he yelled. Hadn't he made it clear enough that he wanted to be alone?

"Well that's a nice way to greet a person" said a light cheery voice. The voice was quickly followed by the person in question: A slim red headed figure with sparkling blue eyes and a distracting sway to her walk pushed open the door.

"Oh, Vic, I didn't realise it was you," he said in glum voice.

"Ok if I join you?" she asked, swiftly taking in Teddy as he was lying on the floor surrounded by photographs.

He shrugged "S'pose." He muttered.

She walked over to him and lay down on the floor next to him. For a long time they said nothing. Then: "You know your ceiling has a crack in it." She told him mildly.

He couldn't help smiling. There was another pause then he said. "I just don't get why. Why would any parent leave their kid?"

"I don't know." She said quietly. "Maybe he thought he was doing what was best for you."

"Don't make excuses," he said quietly .He reached over to his left and pulled a photograph out of the pile on the floor and gave it to her. It showed a man and a woman. The woman looked very young; she had bright pink hair, a heart shaped face and was grinning broadly, in her arms was a tiny baby with turquoise hair. The man was older, there was grey in his brown hair and lines round his grey eyes, he had his arms round the woman and was looking at the baby with an expression of obvious adoration on his face. As she watched he reached down to push the baby's hair out of his face.

"This is your parents" she said "and you when you were a baby."

"It's a lie," he said fiercely. "We look like a proper family, a happy family. But it wasn't like that was it?"

"You don't know that," she said reasonably.

"Yes I do Vic! He left. Ever since I was a kid all I've ever heard is how wonderful my father was, and it was all lies."

"Not Necessarily."

"What do you mean?"

"Just because a person makes a mistake doesn't make them bad."

"Doesn't it?"

"No. It makes them Human." She sat up and looked at him, her red hair falling forward "You can't hate him for being human Teddy," she said "Nobody is perfect, and if you try to make them so you'll just get hurt."

"What if he just didn't care about me?" Teddy said in a small voice, and she knew he would have said that to no one else.

"I'm sure he did! You just have to look at that photo to see he did. If you weren't sulking so much you'd realise that too" she protested passionately. "There are so many people who care about you Teddy, everyone downstairs- your Grandma, Harry, me"

Teddy sat up so fast he almost crashed into her.

"You care about me Vic?"

She blushed up to the roots of her hair "Well, yeah, in a sort of annoying older brother type way of course." she mumbled. He lay back down grinning broadly.

She did too, feeling strangely happy for all she was mortifyingly embarrassed. Nervously she reached over and slipped her hand into his. He gave it a quick squeeze.

There was a silence and then she said "You know the cake downstairs did look sort of delicious."

"And you still haven't said happy birthday."

"Happy Birthday Teddy."

The End.


End file.
